Right Mindset?

I read a story about the different attitudes towards giving birth between Japanese and Chinese. The Chinese believe the expecting mother should eat as much as she wants and gain as much weight as she can, that way the baby will be big and healthy. Seems to make sense to me.

Then there is the Japanese mindset. They believe the woman should diet. She should try to lose weight. That way the baby is born small and thus causes less pain for the mother. What do you think about these two ideas?

It seems the Japanese are not thinking of the health of the baby, just the comfort of the mother. I feel that maybe if it is "more comfortable" for that moment of child birth, the comfort would dissapear as the mom tries to get the baby to gain weight and be healthy.

There is a Chinese teacher at work and she was telling me the two different views on childbirth. What do you think?